Essay On Women's Reproductive Rights

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Pages: 3

“I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down” (William Bennett, former Secretary of Education). The intense policing of women's reproductive capacity places women's health and human rights in great peril. Reproductive rights being basic rights of all women to have sex according to their own thoughts and feelings, free of discrimination, coercion, violence, fear, or shame. The criminal Justice System responds not only to crime as well as transgressions against gender norms. By restricting some women's access to abortion and gynecological care, telling some women not to procreate and pressuring them to be sterilized, prosecuting who use drugs while pregnant and fail to support incarcerated or battered mothers the law and criminal justice system attempt to establish …show more content…
The ideas of fixed genders is promoted as well as the idea of gender being an fluid understanding composed of historical roots and experiences is dismissed. As seen in the insufficient response by the criminal justice system to marital abuse and domestic violence it helps sustain the unhealthy view of the family being a system dominated by the male. At times the state's intervention into women's reproductive lives is obvious such as cases where judges order women not to conceive or moved to a program where the woman is sterilized. Although many times the instances are less obvious for instance by incarcerating a woman who is pregnant, has children, or has been deemed unfit by society. Every year around 2,000 women give birth in prison while lacking in prenatal care medical treatment. Prison not only incapacitates women, it also prevents them from accessing reproductive rights and punishes them for their perceived shortcomings as mothers as well as